Monday, September 28, 2015

Superman Chocolate Mousse Cake with Milo Chiffon Cake 超人巧克力慕思美禄戚风蛋糕

I am so sorry I didn't keep up my promise to visit the blogs that I supposed to be. During my trip, I rarely have times to use my phone, so blogging is totally impossible. We brought ipad, mini ipad, tablet to the trip afraid we might fight using it but end up, we hardly use any of them even my kids lol. After back from the trip, the sickness that attacked me before my trip recurred again and it took one week plus to recover. Now, waiting for my ENT appointment to have a thorough check.

I need to make 3 birthday cakes for dear son, one to celebrate in school, one to celebrate with my mum, one to celebrate at home. One of the cake, dear son requested Superman. Lazy me, and also to clear the going to expire non dairy whipping cream, I decided all the cake decoration will be using cream piping, instead of the fondant cake that I planned initially.

As usual, I did not do a good job on the pipping of cream, too rush, I woke up at 4am+, made this entire cake + bread baking. Ya ya I know, I am too greedy, as always, hopping to maximize my available time :p.

I miscalculated the mousse cake setting time which I did not let the mousse cake has chance to set to hard before I can do all the decoration and of course, most importantly, the photo shooting. Moreover, I need to transport this cake to my mum house, which is 30 mins journey away from my house. Poor Superman cake.... hahaha... By the time I reached my mum's house, it was almost 1pm which initially, I thought I can reach by 11am, my mum was waiting for the lunch I bought for her and my sis was waiting for my kids to bring them out lol.

For the cake base, I made a milo favor so that I can give Zoe and Mui Mui a support on their hosting of Little Thumbs Up.

Well, times really fly, September is coming to the end soon and October, will be my super busy month again. Beside preparing for the QBR for my work, I will be the host of Little Thumbs Up October theme - Coconut. Do give us some support by joining this event.

Method :1. Sift cake/top flour and rice flour twice.2. Mix egg yolks and sugar in a bowl, whisk till sugar has dissolved.3. Add in oil, salt and milk and mix well.4. Sift in the flour and whisk well.5.In another bowl, beat the egg whites and lemon juice/vinegar till frothy. Add in sugar gradually and beat until approaching stiff peaks (meringue stand straight with a little curve at the tip) or till stiff peaks (this stage is a bit difficult to fold with egg yolk mixture).

6. Use whisk to loosen the egg yolk batter a bit, then take 1/3 of meringue and use a hand whisk to mix well with egg yolk batter.

7. Fold in 1/2 of meringue and use a silicone spatula, gently fold with egg yolk batter till slightly combined. Fold in the balance meringue and gently fold till well combined.8. Pour the batter from a considerable height into cake pan, lightly shake it left and right to level the cake, then gently bang the cake pan on the table top to release air bubbles.

9. Bake at pre-heated oven at 120C at center rack for 25 mins and 156C for 15-20 mins. (I off the top heat element and on it back during the last 15-20 mins)

10. Remove the cake pan from oven, drop it from high side to prevent the cake shrink too much during cool process.

11. Turn the cake pan upside down and cool completely before remove from the cake pan.

1. Place the 50g whipping cream and milk in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, heat until hot. remove from fire and set a side.

2. Whisk the egg yolks until pale, slowly add in the heated cream and mix well.

3. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir until melted. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

4. Add the melted chocolate slowly into (2) mixture and mix well.

5. In a separate bowl, whip cream and icing sugar until thickened or stiff stage (be careful not to over-beat).

6. Slowly pour in the chocolate mixture and mix well.

* As I saw the volume of the whipped cream was definitely not sufficient so I just added in more, total 300g whipping cream and 70g icing sugar that I used. I had no time to prepare the custard mixture which the ratio is actually not correct that causing my chocolate mousse not able to set well even I put in freeze for more than 6 hours. The mousse soften and melted pretty fast after I took it out from the freezer.As I misused 8" round cake pan so this amount of cream is not sufficient for 3 layers cake, I can only made 2 layers.

Chocolate Ganache Topping

100g chocolate30g whipping cream20g butter

- Double boil the chocolate, cream and butter until mix well and smooth.

To Assemble:

1, Slice the milo chiffon cake horizontally into 2 pieces.

2. Place one slice of the cake into the cake pan (I am using removable base cake pan), pour 1/3 of the chocolate mousse on it. (For my case, I pour 1/2)3. Place another slice of cake on top of the chocolate mousse, pour the balance half chocolate mousse on it. Repeat the steps until finish.

4. Pour the chocolate ganache on the top of the cake.5. Freeze the cake for at least 4 hours and remove the cake from the cake pan.

As I need to pipe the cream on the cake as per dear son's requested of superman cake, I freeze the cake for 1 hr+, drew the outline of Superman's logo, used 150-200g non dairy whipped cream to pipe out the logo. Then put back to the freezer till set, remove from cake pan and serve.

Apologise for not able to show the milo chiffon cake pix as it was assembly when the sky was still dark, and I was rushing to get the cake done ASAP. Thinking that I am able to take the mousse cake interior pix but end up, I didn't have chance to take the pix when serving the cake as the chocolate mousse melted quite fast so I just quickly served it out. And didn't know it was so delicious that I am not able to keep one slice for next day photo-taking.

Verdict?My son loves the cake, he even wear his Superman suit to match with the cake lol. The milo chiffon cake is a bit too sweet for me, can cut down the sugar further probably by 10g. It has only a hint of milo taste, not very strong. For the chocolate mousse, definitely delicious even though due to my increased of whipping cream that caused it to melt so fast. Next time gonna try it in the correct ratio.

the whole cake looks so perfect for me, especially the superman decoration on top. I always having problem on cake decoration when using whipped cream, as the cream melting quite fast. Any suggestion to stabilize the whipped cream? As I tried put gelatin into the whipped cream, but it turns out quite lumpy, and I don't think it holds the cream longer.

Hi Thea, you are using non dairy whipping cream (topping cream) or dairy whipping cream for decoration? for dairy whipping cream, it will be soft after whip so will be soften very fast. for non dairy whipping cream or topping cream, so brand can whip up very stable whipped cream, some brand softer. if you are using dairy whipping cream, I will suggest you to use non dairy whipping cream. What I do is for frosting and decoration, I use non dairy whipping cream. For the cream layers, then I use dairy whipping cream. If not, you can try put a lot of icing sugar with the dairy whipping cream, this will helps to get more stablise whipped cream but do note that dairy whipping cream is easily over whip. If you are using non dairy whipping cream or topping cream still get soft whipped cream, if you are using redman brand, then you can add in some icing sugar, the more you add the more the whipped cream will be stabled.

I'm using dairy whipping cream. How much icing sugar I should put in order to get a stable cream? I'm worried the cream end up taste too sweet, so I only put 1 tbsp for 1cup of cream. Some said icing sugar shouldn't put initially and whip together with the cream, it should put lastly, isnt make any difference?

Hi Thea, if you want it to frost and deco, then I will suggest you to use non dairy whipping cream cos it is much "harder" than dairy whipping cream, and dairy whipping cream soften faster too. If you scare put icing sugar will be too sweet then dun eat the frosting/deco cream like I do, that is for me, just for decorating. For the cream layers, then I will use dairy whipping cream since is for consumption. For the recent deco, i used about 350g+ redman topping cream with 200+g icing sugar, I whipped them together and the cream was very stable.

I actually want to bake a birthday cake for my friend, I tried to do once at home, overall great, but just the cream melting too fast. I guess I will try to use non dairy whipping cream instead of adding much sugar on the cream, unless I do it for my family la, else it quite hard to keep telling people don't eat the cream. Haha.

Hi Jess,You are awesome! Your cake looks fabulous. If you don't tel, we can't see there is any problem with the nicely and neatly decorated cake .. LOLThank you very much for you support. I am very touch dear! Hope that you are getting better by now. Zoe and I and the rest of our fellow bloggers will definitely support you. Jess, Jia you!!mui

Sorry for all my late visit because of my holidays. I know what you have been through because it is simply too hard to find time to blog during travel. I felt the same too and so I choose not to do any blogging while I was away... Ops! :p

Your cake looks perfect to me leh... You must be too critical with yourself lah :p